Need Help with Driver Installation for Ralink RT5370

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Diogones
Posts: 8
Joined: 4. Mar 2011, 11:47

Need Help with Driver Installation for Ralink RT5370

Post by Diogones »

I've only recently switched to Linux from Windows, and I must say, I really love Salix! It is fast and very convenient to use. Unfortunately, I do have just one problem to an otherwise perfect OS. I don't understand how to install a driver for a Ralink USB Wireless adapter. I have the driver on the disc, which contains both a Windows and Linux version, conveniently enough. The driver version is RT5370, and I don't know how a driver is installed in Linux. I know the Windows driver is installed simply by launching the .exe file which will install the driver for you, but with Linux, I think I'm going to have to get my hands dirty. This is fine - I don't mind doing a little legwork to get a device working, I'm just not sure how to install it, as I've never installed a driver in Linux before. The device is not automatically detected unfortunately, so I'm unsure of where to go from here. I think I will have to edit some text files and so forth, but the Readme file just doesn't make sense to me. Any help for this Linux noob would be most appreciated! :lol:
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thenktor
Salix Wizard
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Joined: 6. Jun 2009, 14:47
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Re: Need Help with Driver Installation for Ralink RT5370

Post by thenktor »

Please open a root terminal and post the output of lsusb and iwconfig.

EDIT: You are right. According to this mail http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-wire ... 68993.html (Date: Wed, 4 May 2011) there is no support for your chipset in the Linux kernel, yet. Ralink offers a GPLed driver (version 2.5.0.1).

Usually the kernel sources are required to compile thir party drivers. So first install them:
slapt-get -u
slapt-get --install kernel-sources

After that unpack the driver sources to some directory:
tar xf 2011_0225_RT5370_RT5372_Linux_STA_V2.5.0.1_DPO.tar.bz2
cd 2011_0225_RT5370_RT5372_Linux_STA_V2.5.0.1_DPO

There is a README file included with detailed instructions, but you can try the usual method first:
make
make install
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djemos
Salix Warrior
Posts: 1464
Joined: 29. Dec 2009, 13:45
Location: Greece

Re: Need Help with Driver Installation for Ralink RT5370

Post by djemos »

I have a HP G62 laptop which has a ralink rt3090 wireless chipset.
So i have made slackbuilds of ralink (GPLed) drivers (rt3090 pci and rt5370 usb) for salix-13.1.2 (2.6.33.4-smp kernel)
For salix-13.37 just download all the files and run the corresponding Slackbuild

rt5370 package (http://people.salixos.org/djemos/salix-13.1/rt5370/)
rt3090 package (http://people.salixos.org/djemos/salix-13.1/rt3090/)

For anyone might find these useful.

Note: rt3090 exists in the kernel as rt2860sta but conflicts with rt2800pci so to work have to
edit the file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf and add the below lines to it…
blacklist rt2800pci
blacklist rt2800lib
blacklist rt2x00pci
blacklist rt2x00lib
Diogones
Posts: 8
Joined: 4. Mar 2011, 11:47

Re: Need Help with Driver Installation for Ralink RT5370 (SO

Post by Diogones »

Thank you both djemos and thenktor for your helpful replies! It really saved the day! I was just about to say, you are correct thenktor - I also found a thread on the Ubuntu forums covering the same driver issue: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1717623&page=4

Thanks for your package djemos! It worked like a charm, and I now have internet with this adapter! I'm going to mark this thread as solved. 8-)
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